6 ms·

Sony is buying Bungie, the developer of Destiny and original creator of Halo

83 points by KoftaBob 5y ago

supermatt 5y ago
Meh, all these exclusives sound like they are just going to shoot each other in the foot. Gamers will end up with both consoles (sold as loss leaders) and spread their investment in games between the two. Lose/lose.
- steveklabnik 5y ago
  They've explicitly stated that none of their games are going to be exclusive. FAQ here: https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/50989 https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/50989 (I play a lot of Destiny)
  - supermatt 5y ago
    They have said that "Destiny 2" wont be exclusive. Nothing else. Edit: seems im wrong, apologies.
    - ubercore 5y ago
      > Q. Bungie has future games in development, will they now become PlayStation exclusives? > No. We want the worlds we are creating to extend to anywhere people play games. We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent, and we will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - thg 5y ago
      The 2nd last FAQ explicitly states something different: -- Q. Bungie has future games in development, will they now become PlayStation exclusives? No. We want the worlds we are creating to extend to anywhere people play games. We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent, and we will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community. -- Although I certainly won't take a wager on that still being true in 3-4 years.
      - arka2147483647 5y ago
        You could argue this means only what is currently in development. Which kind of makes sense, if you already have all the target platforms in the works, might be easiest to ship them all in the intended platforms. I suppose.
      - zerocrates 5y ago
        Sony's more on board with having PC releases so I'd expect that to continue for sure as Bungie has had a playerbase there for a while. But whether further-future releases look more like their "cross-platform" nature is just Playstation and PC, or there's Playstation timed exclusivity or exclusive features... I mean you'd have to think it's pretty likely.
disambiguation 5y ago
I find the journey of Bungie studios the past 2 decades a fascinating and kind of ironic story. - ~2001, Bungie develops Halo as a title for the launch of Mac gaming. - MS snipes the IP and make it an Xbox flagship instead. - Halo evolves as the lead IP of Xbox gaming. - ~2010, Bungie gains independence from MS, but loses Halo in the divorce. - Bungie teams up with Activision to stay competitive. - 2022, MS acquires Activison! Bungie hangs in the balance. - Bungie narrowly escapes MS clutches and teams up with Sony! Have to wonder if MS thought they would get Bungie as part of the package. Regardless, props to them for really forging their own "Destiny" ;)
- Jcowell 5y ago
  Your timeline is off Bungie left Activision years before and became independent leading up to now.
  - disambiguation 5y ago
    huh TIL.. slightly less ironic then.
- gwern 5y ago
  It's kinda sad seeing them bought up again. I was reading https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwqjg3/the-complete-untold-history-of-halo-an-oral-history https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwqjg3/the-complete-untold-h... yesterday (great but long read) and they really desperately wanted out of MS, and - victims of their own success with Halo 1 - made a lot of Halo games they didn't want to as the price of freedom. And now here they are again in a big conglomerate.
- gnabgib 5y ago
  Almost nothing you've got here is accurate. - Halo was announced in 1999, originally planned as an RTS for Windows + Mac, not for the launch of Mac gaming (not Mac only, although prior titles were focused on Mac only) - MS purchased Bungie in 2000 - While Halo was a flagship, it was also released on Windows + Mac in the end (two years late), no IP sniping - 2007 Bungie splits from MS to a private company (leaving the Halo franchise behind), not 2010 - 2010-2019 Bungie partners with Activision, they coop to make Destiny - there was no acquisition - 3 years ago (2019) Bungie ends the partnership, keeps Destiny franchise - There's no way MS considered a company that had a former relationship with an acquisition might be thrown in [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(franchise) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(franchise) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungie
WorldMaker 5y ago
Sounds like Bungie "lost". My sympathies to them. They stated after exiting Microsoft they wanted to remain independent from thenceforth (and part of why Destiny was named that, they saw it as putting their own Destiny in their own hands, it sounded like). They went through so much horror with Activision precisely because they wanted to remain independent, but it sounds like the fight with Activision left them more wounded than they wanted to admit if they are selling to Sony. (I don't think Bungie entirely spiritually survived the split with 343 anyway, given the rumors of all the behind-the-scenes drama in the making of Destiny, but I was rooting for their continued independence as a fascinating story, even as I stopped playing Destiny 1/2 because I hated their economy.)
- Tsarbomb 5y ago
  > They went through so much horror with Activision That is a falsehood that a lot management at Bungie would love to keep perpetuating. A lot of the terrible and toxic management, the disrespecting of the community, and terrible game design decisions (especially around micro-transactions) all came from the senior management at Bungie.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    I don't think we'll ever know exact details for certain in the public record, but it definitely feels like one of those "it takes two to tango" situations where both sides were toxic and inflamed the worst in each other. I do think a lot of what Bungie blames on Activision were decisions they would have made anyway but liked having someone to blame. (That's still a type of horror, gaslighting yourself that your publisher is the enemy rather than your partner.)
- dogma1138 5y ago
  Wasn’t there a direct quote form Bungie senior leadership that they went with Activision because they came to them and pitched them how they can monetize multiplayer?
- turndown 5y ago
  Disclaimer: Life-long Halo fan who also put 3k hours into Destiny 1 I think that Bungie has always been really bad at project management(I think this is reflected in Halo 2, Destiny 1 and to some extent Destiny 2) which I think even extends to 343, where Halo 5 and Infinite had more than enough time to develop a reasonably featured game but couldn’t manage it. I also think that somewhere along the way they lost that skilled touch Bungie had with its community back in the day. But of course, they are still masters of the core game loop and will therefore survive. I hear they’ve improved in recent years - that’s nice, but I’d never play a new Bungie game again.
rpmisms 5y ago
Hopefully Sony is smart enough to leave them alone. The independent Era of Bungie has led to one of the best ongoing stories I've ever seen in a game (Destiny 2). Don't kill the golden goose, Sony.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
AdamTReineke 5y ago
More discussion (w/3x upvotes): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30151580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30151580
bastardoperator 5y ago
I don't know anyone that is in love with the destiny franchise. It gets boring pretty quickly and plenty of other games do PVP better. If destiny went PS exclusive I think it would only hurt the franchise/studio.
post_break 5y ago
Reminds me of that quote about movies just being called Disneys, because Disney bought all the movie studios. The consolidation of everything seems like a loss for the gamer. You can bet the exclusives start to become much more serious in the future.
- uejfiweun 5y ago
  Seems like PC gamers are the real winners here though, as both Sony and Microsoft have been releasing very nice ports of AAA games such as Halo and God of War. Definitely a fan of this change, although I'm wary of these companies abusing their monopoly powers in the future.
shadowgovt 5y ago
The takeaway I get from this is it's really hard to be a financially-stable independent studio.
- nightski 5y ago
  I see it differently. I think we are seeing that console makers are realizing all the money is in games and not hardware, so they are buying up studios left & right. They also want to offer subscriptions to games which is easier when you own the games themselves.
  - ogazitt 5y ago
    Console sales have always been a break-even business over the lifetime of the generation. You lose LOTS of money up front, and eventually (in year 6 or 7) you may turn an overall profit on console sales. Hardware accessories (e.g. controllers) are a bit better. Assuming you can produce hits, first-party IP has always been the most profitable part of the value chain. But having 90% of your ecosystem come from 1P (like Nintendo) limits the size of the ecosystem. Xbox traditionally had 30-40% of the overall content revenue come from 1P IP, and 60-70% were from 3P. Sony perhaps a bit more than that. Both were ecosystem plays. It seems like both ecosystems are recognizing that they need exclusives to sustain their franchises.
rubyist5eva 5y ago
This is such a colossally bad purchase, it's laughable in the wake of Microsoft buying Activision.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Kapura 5y ago
To me, this seems like Sony investing in a studio (and property) that has game-as-a-service title chops. MMOs like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 14 create a steady, predictable stream of income. While Destiny 2 doesn't have a monthly subscription, its regular content updates do create money on an annual basis, with aesthetic microtransactions to boot. Contrast this to first-party Sony studios like Naughty Dog, which will take a minimum of several years to develop a game like The Last of Us or the next Uncharted. Even if you extend the moneymaking tail by trickling out DLC for a year or two after release, you're basically betting on a hit that will produce enough money at one time to justify paying several hundred salaries for several years after that. It's not hard to see why Sony would want a regular moneymaker in the difficult-to-break-into GAAS space. And for Bungie, they've openly confirmed that they've had incubation projects for several years. Getting a gigantic publisher like Sony will give them the financial freedom they need to start building out whatever the next game is. This was basically the logic with the Activision partnership: they needed deep pockets upfront to build out the tech that powers Destiny. That done, they were able to return to their complete independence. Will it happen again?
- mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
  Destiny 2 has a seasonal pass model at $10 USD per 3 month season. Many of the ways to advance in the game are tied to the season pass so you could say it has a $3/mo subscription. That also doesn't take into account any cosmetics players purchase so there is a fair amount of regularly recurring revenue.
JohnTHaller 5y ago
My Xbox friends that still play Destiny 2 are expecting the experience to worsen with the acquisition. Sony has paid Bungie/Activision a chunk of change/in kind advertising to make chunks of Destiny Playstation exclusive for years to the detriment of the Xbox experience (certain maps and certain weapons that would improve progress missing for a 12+ month window, etc). I'm not sure what the state of it is right now as I stopped playing once they adjusted Destiny 2 to be even more of a grindfest requiring far too many hours to progress. Plus, playing the same exact strikes over and over just got boring.
- steveklabnik 5y ago
  Those days are long gone; there's nothing platform exclusive in the game currently.
  - JohnTHaller 5y ago
    Good to know, thanks.

83 points by KoftaBob 5y ago

Meh, all these exclusives sound like they are just going to shoot each other in the foot. Gamers will end up with both consoles (sold as loss leaders) and spread their investment in games between the two. Lose/lose.

steveklabnik 5y ago
They've explicitly stated that none of their games are going to be exclusive. FAQ here: https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/50989 https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/50989 (I play a lot of Destiny)
- supermatt 5y ago
  They have said that "Destiny 2" wont be exclusive. Nothing else. Edit: seems im wrong, apologies.
  - ubercore 5y ago
    > Q. Bungie has future games in development, will they now become PlayStation exclusives? > No. We want the worlds we are creating to extend to anywhere people play games. We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent, and we will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - thg 5y ago
    The 2nd last FAQ explicitly states something different: -- Q. Bungie has future games in development, will they now become PlayStation exclusives? No. We want the worlds we are creating to extend to anywhere people play games. We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent, and we will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community. -- Although I certainly won't take a wager on that still being true in 3-4 years.
    - arka2147483647 5y ago
      You could argue this means only what is currently in development. Which kind of makes sense, if you already have all the target platforms in the works, might be easiest to ship them all in the intended platforms. I suppose.
    - zerocrates 5y ago
      Sony's more on board with having PC releases so I'd expect that to continue for sure as Bungie has had a playerbase there for a while. But whether further-future releases look more like their "cross-platform" nature is just Playstation and PC, or there's Playstation timed exclusivity or exclusive features... I mean you'd have to think it's pretty likely.

disambiguation 5y ago

I find the journey of Bungie studios the past 2 decades a fascinating and kind of ironic story. - ~2001, Bungie develops Halo as a title for the launch of Mac gaming. - MS snipes the IP and make it an Xbox flagship instead. - Halo evolves as the lead IP of Xbox gaming. - ~2010, Bungie gains independence from MS, but loses Halo in the divorce. - Bungie teams up with Activision to stay competitive. - 2022, MS acquires Activison! Bungie hangs in the balance. - Bungie narrowly escapes MS clutches and teams up with Sony! Have to wonder if MS thought they would get Bungie as part of the package. Regardless, props to them for really forging their own "Destiny" ;)

Jcowell 5y ago
Your timeline is off Bungie left Activision years before and became independent leading up to now.
- disambiguation 5y ago
  huh TIL.. slightly less ironic then.
gwern 5y ago
It's kinda sad seeing them bought up again. I was reading https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwqjg3/the-complete-untold-history-of-halo-an-oral-history https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwqjg3/the-complete-untold-h... yesterday (great but long read) and they really desperately wanted out of MS, and - victims of their own success with Halo 1 - made a lot of Halo games they didn't want to as the price of freedom. And now here they are again in a big conglomerate.
gnabgib 5y ago
Almost nothing you've got here is accurate. - Halo was announced in 1999, originally planned as an RTS for Windows + Mac, not for the launch of Mac gaming (not Mac only, although prior titles were focused on Mac only) - MS purchased Bungie in 2000 - While Halo was a flagship, it was also released on Windows + Mac in the end (two years late), no IP sniping - 2007 Bungie splits from MS to a private company (leaving the Halo franchise behind), not 2010 - 2010-2019 Bungie partners with Activision, they coop to make Destiny - there was no acquisition - 3 years ago (2019) Bungie ends the partnership, keeps Destiny franchise - There's no way MS considered a company that had a former relationship with an acquisition might be thrown in [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(franchise) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(franchise) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungie

WorldMaker 5y ago

Sounds like Bungie "lost". My sympathies to them. They stated after exiting Microsoft they wanted to remain independent from thenceforth (and part of why Destiny was named that, they saw it as putting their own Destiny in their own hands, it sounded like). They went through so much horror with Activision precisely because they wanted to remain independent, but it sounds like the fight with Activision left them more wounded than they wanted to admit if they are selling to Sony. (I don't think Bungie entirely spiritually survived the split with 343 anyway, given the rumors of all the behind-the-scenes drama in the making of Destiny, but I was rooting for their continued independence as a fascinating story, even as I stopped playing Destiny 1/2 because I hated their economy.)

Tsarbomb 5y ago
> They went through so much horror with Activision That is a falsehood that a lot management at Bungie would love to keep perpetuating. A lot of the terrible and toxic management, the disrespecting of the community, and terrible game design decisions (especially around micro-transactions) all came from the senior management at Bungie.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  I don't think we'll ever know exact details for certain in the public record, but it definitely feels like one of those "it takes two to tango" situations where both sides were toxic and inflamed the worst in each other. I do think a lot of what Bungie blames on Activision were decisions they would have made anyway but liked having someone to blame. (That's still a type of horror, gaslighting yourself that your publisher is the enemy rather than your partner.)
dogma1138 5y ago
Wasn’t there a direct quote form Bungie senior leadership that they went with Activision because they came to them and pitched them how they can monetize multiplayer?
turndown 5y ago
Disclaimer: Life-long Halo fan who also put 3k hours into Destiny 1 I think that Bungie has always been really bad at project management(I think this is reflected in Halo 2, Destiny 1 and to some extent Destiny 2) which I think even extends to 343, where Halo 5 and Infinite had more than enough time to develop a reasonably featured game but couldn’t manage it. I also think that somewhere along the way they lost that skilled touch Bungie had with its community back in the day. But of course, they are still masters of the core game loop and will therefore survive. I hear they’ve improved in recent years - that’s nice, but I’d never play a new Bungie game again.

rpmisms 5y ago

Hopefully Sony is smart enough to leave them alone. The independent Era of Bungie has led to one of the best ongoing stories I've ever seen in a game (Destiny 2). Don't kill the golden goose, Sony.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

AdamTReineke 5y ago

More discussion (w/3x upvotes): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30151580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30151580

bastardoperator 5y ago

I don't know anyone that is in love with the destiny franchise. It gets boring pretty quickly and plenty of other games do PVP better. If destiny went PS exclusive I think it would only hurt the franchise/studio.

post_break 5y ago

Reminds me of that quote about movies just being called Disneys, because Disney bought all the movie studios. The consolidation of everything seems like a loss for the gamer. You can bet the exclusives start to become much more serious in the future.

uejfiweun 5y ago
Seems like PC gamers are the real winners here though, as both Sony and Microsoft have been releasing very nice ports of AAA games such as Halo and God of War. Definitely a fan of this change, although I'm wary of these companies abusing their monopoly powers in the future.

shadowgovt 5y ago

The takeaway I get from this is it's really hard to be a financially-stable independent studio.

nightski 5y ago
I see it differently. I think we are seeing that console makers are realizing all the money is in games and not hardware, so they are buying up studios left & right. They also want to offer subscriptions to games which is easier when you own the games themselves.
- ogazitt 5y ago
  Console sales have always been a break-even business over the lifetime of the generation. You lose LOTS of money up front, and eventually (in year 6 or 7) you may turn an overall profit on console sales. Hardware accessories (e.g. controllers) are a bit better. Assuming you can produce hits, first-party IP has always been the most profitable part of the value chain. But having 90% of your ecosystem come from 1P (like Nintendo) limits the size of the ecosystem. Xbox traditionally had 30-40% of the overall content revenue come from 1P IP, and 60-70% were from 3P. Sony perhaps a bit more than that. Both were ecosystem plays. It seems like both ecosystems are recognizing that they need exclusives to sustain their franchises.

rubyist5eva 5y ago

This is such a colossally bad purchase, it's laughable in the wake of Microsoft buying Activision.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Kapura 5y ago

To me, this seems like Sony investing in a studio (and property) that has game-as-a-service title chops. MMOs like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 14 create a steady, predictable stream of income. While Destiny 2 doesn't have a monthly subscription, its regular content updates do create money on an annual basis, with aesthetic microtransactions to boot. Contrast this to first-party Sony studios like Naughty Dog, which will take a minimum of several years to develop a game like The Last of Us or the next Uncharted. Even if you extend the moneymaking tail by trickling out DLC for a year or two after release, you're basically betting on a hit that will produce enough money at one time to justify paying several hundred salaries for several years after that. It's not hard to see why Sony would want a regular moneymaker in the difficult-to-break-into GAAS space. And for Bungie, they've openly confirmed that they've had incubation projects for several years. Getting a gigantic publisher like Sony will give them the financial freedom they need to start building out whatever the next game is. This was basically the logic with the Activision partnership: they needed deep pockets upfront to build out the tech that powers Destiny. That done, they were able to return to their complete independence. Will it happen again?

mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
Destiny 2 has a seasonal pass model at $10 USD per 3 month season. Many of the ways to advance in the game are tied to the season pass so you could say it has a $3/mo subscription. That also doesn't take into account any cosmetics players purchase so there is a fair amount of regularly recurring revenue.

JohnTHaller 5y ago

My Xbox friends that still play Destiny 2 are expecting the experience to worsen with the acquisition. Sony has paid Bungie/Activision a chunk of change/in kind advertising to make chunks of Destiny Playstation exclusive for years to the detriment of the Xbox experience (certain maps and certain weapons that would improve progress missing for a 12+ month window, etc). I'm not sure what the state of it is right now as I stopped playing once they adjusted Destiny 2 to be even more of a grindfest requiring far too many hours to progress. Plus, playing the same exact strikes over and over just got boring.

steveklabnik 5y ago
Those days are long gone; there's nothing platform exclusive in the game currently.
- JohnTHaller 5y ago
  Good to know, thanks.